New Panasonic EVA1 Could be The Ultimate Indie Cinema Camera

Panasonic takes aim at the C200 and the FS7 with the new EVA1.

After letting some of its mindshare slip to Arri and RED over the last decade, Panasonic has made a huge step back into the cinema market with the Varicam renaissance of the last few years, starting three years ago with the Varicam 35. We particularly love last year's smaller form factor Varicam LT, which we reviewed a few months ago and found very impressive. Panasonic is now aiming squarely at regaining ground in the indie cinema marketplace with the new EVA1, announced today at Cine Gear Expo on the Paramount Lot in LA.
Credit: Panasonic

An EF mount, 5.7K cinema camera, offering 4K up to 60p and 2K up to 240p, the EVA1 will come in at a price point of under $8000 when it starts shipping this fall. Similar to its larger Varicam cousins, the EVA1 is built around dual native ISO, though precisely what those ISOs are won't be finalized until later. The Varicam 5000 ISO is incredibly useable in low light work, and hopefully, the EVA1 will come in somewhere close to that in terms of low light performance.
Credit: Panasonic

The EVA1 body comes in at only 2.65lbs, making it ideal for handheld, Steadicam and gimbal work. It also offers Electronic Image Stabilization that should make it even more useful as an action camera. It has full sized XLR audio inputs, and puts out 4K over both HDMI and SDI. The 5.7K sensor is used for oversampling 4K footage, which should offer even cleaner 4K signal and richer color information that previously available. The camera records up to 400 Mbps, which creates more robust files and more versatility in color grading without increasing noise levels.
Credit: Panasonic

If there is one frustration, it's the EF mount over the MFT of the GH5. With an MFT mount, a PL adapter is easy, whereas the EF mount doesn't adapt to PL due to flange focal distance. While the decision makes sense in terms of the deep EF userbase, the decision to go to EF makes this really more of a C200 beater than an FS7 killer. If you want a great 4K camera on a budget with a PL adapter, the FS7 and the Ursa Mini Pro remain your options.
Credit: Panasonic

That said, PL mount glass is still an expensive purchase or rental for most of us, and there is a tremendous amount of beautiful EF mount glass in the world. The advantages of the EF mount in terms of internal lens control and lens choice make its use here understandable. With the DVX100 and the HVX200, Panasonic offered indie filmmakers amazing cameras at a great price, and it seems like that the EVA1 will continue that tradition of high-level performance and color that indies can afford.
Credit: Panasonic

In my admittedly limited – but heavily google-assisted – experience there is no easy way of getting PL glass on EF cameras without either major caveats or major operations on the camera or lens. The flange-distance is simply too close.

Yep, EF body to PL lens mount only works on a selection of lenses, mainly zooms, and you also lose the strength of an actual positive locking mount because the weak EF spring mount is still a part of the chain.

Second that. It's nauseating. Especially when absolutely nobody films skate videos on cameras like this, a lot of them are still shooting on VX1000's because it doesn't matter when they get smashed to the ground.

The cycles of fashion run tighter and tighter – the 90's are all over music right now, soon computers will go back to colored-clear plastics and there will be a clam-shell phone (but with a touchscreen). That red stripe is not old-fashioned, it's retro-chic.

Maybe a subliminal dig at the red stripe on Canon gear, especially going head to head with Canon C200 ? Some lens companies do that to kinda look like Canon lenses. That might seem far-fetched, but Sony, and now Panasonic with this camera, do seem to have taken notes from the C300/C100 form-factor. Looks like a good camera anyway. Exciting times.

Not trying to pick a fight with you but, actually, this looks more like a Sony FS5/7 than a Canon C. And I don't think any other manufacturers took notes from the C cameras for form-factor. EVA is no beauty queen but, to me, the C100/300's are the goofiest looking cameras currently on the market.

I used Panasonic GH4 to shoot my debut feature film. We used it in a very, very challenging conditions. And it hold it extremely well. On a big screen nobody could say what camera we have used, one guy thought that it looked like shot by Alexa Mini.
You can see the entire film from here:https://vimeo.com/ondemand/noone

Dearly beloved we gather here today to mourn the Canon C200 which unfortunately lost the race before it even began. Along came a better racehorse with the name "AU-EVA1" henceforth known as Eva. Yes, Eva; Eva has 60P slow motion in 4K with an all-I codec that sees you all the way through in glorious 4:2:2 10-bit with a 5.7K sensor at rates up to 400 Mbps. Although Eva only records 4K DCI internally, she will output 5.7K in Raw to a compatible external recorder. With a S35 sensor and EF lens mount.
Ahhh, Raaw, that thing which many discuss but most of us care less about, we'd rather have a robust internal codec like 4:2:2 10-bit, sigh. The poor, now obsolete C200 only offers 4:2:0 8-bit MPEG, yes—gone are the days of banding in bright blue beautiful skies. Eva even uses SD cards instead of the horribly, grossly overpriced, CFast cards. And she can launch from the gate onto the track at a full 240 frames per second in 2K and HD without sensor cropping.
Eva can keep great time, timecode that is, very acceptable to receive and send out too. Eva has dual ISO’s like her big sisters with a wonderful colourspace from the VariCam family. But wait there’s more! More you ask?! Yes, internal image stabilization (well electronic in nature but time will tell how effective). Her parents “Panasonic” believe she will do well in life and please filmmakers for many years to come. And for a mere $8,000.00 you can have a beauty just like her for your very own.
If the makers of the poor lowly C200 think, maybe they can rescue their creation by not intentionally offering crippled codecs. Meaning when XF-AVC is eventually offered it will be 10-bit and not 8-bit, although since some believe that may be a hardware limitation it does beg the question, if it can do Raw in 12-bit, why can’t it move a slower codec in 10? Adding 10-bit MPEG might help, or at the very least adjusting the price downward to something like $5,995.00 more in line with what is being offered in the real world of today.
But I digress-
For the truth seekers looking for more, the Nirvana of cameras (well that’s a lie there is no perfect camera) seek here and you will find more about Eva:http://www.newsshooter.com/2017/06/03/panasonic-au-eva1/http://www.4kshooters.net/2017/06/03/panasonic-eva-1-new-5-7k-super-35-e...https://www.cinema5d.com/panasonic-au-eva1-unveiled-compact-rich-in-feat...

I agree with you about how good EVA1 specs sheet sound like (although i need to see some footage from it)... Yet Canon could have done so much better with the C200, it's awful going from 4K60p 1Gbps RAW, to 4K 150Mbps MPEG... Really!?! They couldn't get some other codecs in between?? I rather have a robust internal codec with the possibility to shoot RAW when needed, than having to use RAW by default. But if they squeeze more codecs in the C200 that means the C100 and C300 die immediately! I'm really glad Panasonic wasn't afraid of putting the dual native ISO in the EVA... Take notes Canon, if you still can.

I agree with all of this. But, devil's advocate...the Canon c200/c300mii/c700 is a very beautiful sensor - to be able to get 4k60p in 10bit or 4k24p in 12 bit compressed raw in that tiny form factor for 6500 is honestly very impressive.
I'm a VariCam owner so obviously the Eva is more exciting to me, but c200 I feel has it's place. Maybe for cheap rentals or something.

For me I was close to getting a C300 Mark II, what I don't like about it is no real slomo, price still too high when compared to what's available in the market today, and the high price of CFast cards. For it to be relevant for me to purchase it would have to drop another $2K in price to $9,995.00, and at that I could probably live with the current pricing of CFast cards. My recent thoughts—the Ursa mini pro is interesting offering 4.6K 4:4:4 12-bit in Raw but the back end workflow and storage could be astronomical and again those expensive CFast cards. It's frustrating to me, I had hopes when I first learned about the C200 but as Canon often does, was disappointed with the final offering. And now the Eva which appears promising, hopefully it will turn out with features as mentioned thus far and then some. I currently have access to a FS7 which I like and using DaVinci Resolve I've managed to create some nice looks that I like. However, it is not a camera I want to purchase as I desire something that is a bit easier to handhold. The Ursa Mini Pro is a bit heavy for extended handholding, the C300 Mark II is OK, and the C200 and Eva even more so. I looked at the FS5 but the internal codecs are seriously lacking in my opinion. I'm patient though and will most likely wait to see what the final version of Eva turns out to be. It'd nice if Canon did offer something better in the C200 or added full frame slomo HD to the C300 Mark II with the Raw lite codec, who knows, I may still get the C300MKII. All of these of course will yield excellent results in the right hands. It's an interesting era that we are now living it.

Exactly! It's a shame CFast cards cost so much, cuz' i don't like so much the fact that SD cards are somewhat fragile. I had an almost brand new card (and i'm very careful with my equipment) damaged, braking the lock switch part (i stayed locked forever). CFast feel sturdy, that you can even throw them around the set! :3

First of all, the C200 has internal raw recording, which the Panasonic doesn't. And if it's judiciously compressed to make it practical, then there's every reason to use it. If you don't care about it, fine. But 400 Mbps is nothing to crow about when shooting 4K. And recording raw data saves you worries about white balance during acquisition.

Downsampling from 5.7K sounds great... until you decimate the color information with a 4:2:2 codec. The higher resolution overcomes much of the color-resolution deficit that's inherent in a single Bayer chip... but then half that color resolution is thrown away. OOPS.

It remains to be seen what Canon's better codec will offer. It's pretty pathetic to release any camera without at least ProRes 4:4:4 at this point, but Canon has long shown a peculiar ignorance of the need for high-quality codecs.

Then again, so has Panasonic. You're talking about the company that never did release a DV50 or DV100 codec for Windows, meaning 95 percent of computer users couldn't access footage from their best cameras... for years.

Talked to a rep and engineer, they said MSRP is 6500 with the top handle and all. He said the raw upgrade will be free with firmware and will most likely be stuck at 10 bit. ISO he said will be native at 800 and the other native he estimated between 2500 and 3200. Also the raw is a form of compressed raw like Canon's new raw light

I really hope this price turns out to be real. If it's only $6500 I would gladly pick one up. Even at $8000 flat I'm still considering it. Only wish it included an EVF and had 8 and 10 stop ND options.

Yeah, built-in NDs are great, but 6 stops isn't enough. I'll take it over no NDs, but 6 stops won't allow you to open up wide when shooting outdoors to get that super shallow DOF. It's always a little frustrating to have to screw on an ND filter when you already have built in NDs (like on the original C300). Canon got it right with 10 stops of ND on the C200.

I love it when people comment saying cameras like this are too expensive. If the image lives up to the spec, this camera is worth double what they are asking.

That's the question though...if the image looks like the Varicam LT, I'll buy one, but if it looks like the GH5/DVX200, I won't. I'll probably end up with a C200 in spite of it's imperfections. In fact either of these cameras will need add-ons, so really the difference will be in workflow/colour preference and usability preference.

Honestly I'm still leaning towards the C200. As a C100 Shooter, I could match the two much better. The biggest thing people are talking about is bit rate. I mean my C100 has only 24mbps, with most light grades that enough. All of my work is for the web (not broadcast) so 35mbps/150mbps is completely fine (It's better than the FS5). Also the C series cameras are pretty clean at 5000 iso (no dual native needed).

I wouldn't necessarily count on the C100 and C200 matching easily. I've had quite a few shoots with a C100 Mark I and a C300 Mark II and, honestly, they don't match well at all. It takes a good amount of work to get them close. Of course, we won't know until we try but I'd be willing to bet it won't be as easy as you think.

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I've been a huge fan of NoFilmSchool for years now, and this just ruined it. Removing my bookmark now.

I was just starting to enjoy how calm the camera forums were getting,then Canon made a little rustle, and I could accept that. Then this came out, and the world has gone mad! I'd love to see some camera reviews come out before I jump onto any train just yet, but it looks promising. EIS is definitely going to be a hit or miss for Panasonic. Also wondering how ergonomic/ balanced the camera will be from the hand grip.

It's between Canon's colors and Panasonic's specs, so it's presumptuous to count Canon out just because they currently lack a BBC approved broadcast codec. They could eventually fix that with a firmware update. The same complaints were lodged against the C100, and it's proven to be an extremely usable and popular camera.

That said, Panasonic turned me around with the GH2 after years as a long time Canon user (both consumer and XL series), and I stopped shooting with my T2i's, so to each their own. If I can color match the EVA1 with the GH5, it will be my go-to rental cam. I'd also like to see a model with an active M43 mount for using a Speed Booster to attain full-frame, but it's not vital.

I've been waiting to get my hands on this camera for quite a while. I finally did. So I put together a quick cinematic concept to shoot. I loved working with this camera and I was very pleased with how the footage both captured and how it handled in post. Here's a link to the film in case anyone is interested... https://youtu.be/ckcaYi7lusM

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